It's a GIFT REGISTRY, not ROCKET SCIENCE, Dad.

So we have a couple of baby showers coming up (wee!) and I have made two gift registries for them. I made one on Amazon, because I used an Amazon registry for our wedding and loved it. It’s so easy for me to make, because I can research products and read reviews and all that right there before adding anything, and Amazon makes great recommendations based on what you’ve already got going in there, and it’s a universal registry so I can even add stuff like the IKEA changing table we’re eyeballing and the cloth diapers you can only get from one website. And it’s so easy for people to buy from, because IT’S AMAZON!!! Everyone loves shopping on Amazon, right??!?! (And then I also made a second registry on Babies R Us because my sister told me to and I do what my sister says since she is pretty smart and already has a baby.)

My FIL is apparently 23849 years old, though, and cannot figure out our Amazon registry. And it is driving both DH and me insane!

First, his mind is hopelessly boggled by the idea of a gift registry being on Amazon to begin with. He simply cannot comprehend this. Now keep in mind — he just turned 60 and works for a major bank in a very high level position. It’s not like he’s some ancient grandma trying to figure out how to send emails here. There is no reason he should struggle with this so much. And yet we keep having conversations like this:

“So I just go to the store and –“

“No, Dad, you don’t go to the store because it’s Amazon. They don’t have a store. It’s online.”

“Oh, so I have to … buy it … from–“

“Online, Dad. You buy it online. You know how you always get that lotion Gloria likes from Amazon? It’s just like that. You go the registry and then you buy the car seat with your Amazon account.”

“How do I know which car seat?”

“There is only one car seat on the registry.”

“So then I am buying it and it gets shipped to me?”

“No, it gets shipped directly to us. Amazon takes care of that.”

“So I have to put in your address and then tell it to ship it to you?”

“No, it gets shipped to us automatically.”

“Are you sure it won’t get shipped to me?”

“[DH elaborately pantomimes a graphic suicide]”

Once FIL was able to understand that Amazon.com — you know, the same Amazon where you order books from — was where our registry was located, we ran into further problems. Now he can’t find the registry on there. DH tells him to Google it. “Just Google [my name] Amazon baby registry and you will find it immediately. It shows up as the first result.” No — this is too difficult for FIL. Google? What’s next, are we going to expect him to perform open heart surgery while blindfolded?!?!

The whole thing is such a challenge for him that he keeps trying to get around it completely. Now we end up with conversations like this:

“How about I just fly up there and we can go to the store and pick something out?” (he lives in CA while we live in WA. A plane ticket would be at least $200)

“Dad, that’s really stupid. You don’t need to fly up here just so that I can show you how to buy something on Amazon.”

“Maybe instead of the car seat I can just buy her an annuity for a college fund?”

“Okay, you could do that, but we really need the car seat soon so if you’re not going to buy that, let us know so we can order it ourselves in case the baby is born early.”

“I just don’t know. I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”

“GO ON AMAZON AND BUY THE CAR SEAT, DAD. THAT IS WHAT YOU SHOULD DO.”

“How do I find the registry again?”

I don’t even know if I should laugh because it’s funny, or cry because this man gave DH 50% of his DNA and more than 50% of his mannerisms, so pretty soon the guy who can’t fathom Amazon is going to be my own husband.

Whenever I want my Grandpa to buy me something online (they are the “make a list and tell me what from it you want” types), I find, it, put it IN MY CART, and email them a link to the shopping cart where they can just put in their credit card #.

@almostmrsj: haha DH is like “No. He needs to do this himself. He needs to learn.” Personally I’m just glad I’m not the one that has to field these phone calls!!

@KatieBklyn: I’m really hoping that’s how it ends up going down. Although far more likely is we’ll get a random package in the mail with a car seat from Amazon that is not the one we registered for, because FIL still doesn’t fully understand what’s going on with this. *headdesk*

@iarebridezilla: LOL. It’s funny because he uses Amazon for other stuff. Can you just put a car seat on the Babies R Us registry? Then he could go to a store and your poor husband wouldn’t have to contemplate suicide. I can imagine how frustrating it is, but I admit it – I laughed and laughed at your dialogue, lol.

@MrsPanda99: the two of them together is hysterical, really. I’m convinced FIL is an 85-year-old woman trapped in a 60-year-old man’s body. I did consider putting the car seat on the BRU registry but the same seat is like $40 more expensive there! At this point, though, the extra $40 he’d pay would still be cheaper than the plane ticket he keeps bringing up buying, so maybe it’s worth it!

We didn’t invite him to the baby shower up here and aren’t telling him about it, because he just visited last month and we can’t deal with FIL visiting us more often than once every few months. It’s just … too much. And yes, he would absolutely fly up here to attend a baby shower for a couple hours on a Sunday. 100% certain.

My grandfather can completely build a chevy engine into a 51 Ford pickup body…. but the first time he saw how the iPhone screen rotates for your view when you hold it sideways, he about lost his mind…. he just got all buggy-eyed and held the phone like it was possessed! Sometimes things are just beyond comprehension… lol.

Good luck with the carseat!!! I think a PP had a fabulous idea of just emailing him the link to the cart page! Maybe your DH will feel differently after a few more rounds lol.

@Sunnyday278: I mean, I’ve just … I’ve never seen someone have such a hard time understanding something so simple! haha I’m going to keep watching the registry for a few days and if that car seat doesn’t show up as “purchased” then I’m going to send FIL the direct link. I’m not sure how much more of this DH can hande before he just completely loses his mind

I feel you. My dad is 62 and this entire summer he’s insisted on wearing swim trunks EVERYWHERE. The first time I saw him coming back from the grocery store in bright orange hawaiian print trunks I asked if he had been swimming that day (at the senior center gym, mind you) and he said “no, they’re just comfortable”. WHYYYYY can’t you just go to Belk for the 3984949 time and buy more comfortable shorts?!?

Sigh. FMIL is like this. She’s only 55, but she is TERRIFIED of buying anything online. She doesn’t get it, and doesn’t want to give her credit card number to any site because obviously someone will immediately steal it. I just had to order our flowers on my credit card because she insisted on buying flowers, but wouldn’t purchase the ones I wanted and wanted me to take some time that I don’t have to drive 30 minutes one way to some flower shop to see what they had. Four weeks to the wedding. The ONLY weekend I have open to do that is the weekend immediately before the wedding, and I will not be doing anything wedding related that weekend (also? that’s a little too late).

What kills me is that a big part of her job is dealing with people’s travel visas/passports, accommodations, plane tickets, and car rentals, for which she uses…the internet and a credit card.

That’s funny, and yes totally frustrating I’m sure. I’d suggest finding a store that sells the car seat and having him purchase it there if he really can’t get Amazon. Or liek someone else said have him write a check. Or sit on the phone with him click-by-click until he gets it.

@seabunny: OH. MY. GOD. When FIL was here visiting, he kept wearing this awful Las Vegas “Show me the Money!” t-shirt with these shorts that were well above the knee. At one point we were preparing to go out to dinner and I whispered to DH “is he going to wear those short-shorts out of the house? Please tell me he’s going to change before dinner.” DH still laughs about that. “Is he going to wear those short-shorts out of the house?” is pretty much the thing we say every time DH gets off the phone with FIL.

IS HE GOING TO WEAR THOSE SHORT-SHORTS OUT OF THE HOUSE!??!

DH and I basically have a bit we do where we make fun of FIL together until we start to feel bad. We usually last two or three minutes straight.

My ILs are like that. They are old school and in their late 50s/early 60s and they literally don’t have a computer. They just switched to a digital camera because we couldn’t buy a 35mm in a normal store (e.g. Target, BB). He got a ticket somewhat recently and the poor traffic school had to find him a pen and paper for him to do the class because he doesn’t know how to use a computer. MIL barely knows English so she’s not much help.

They’ve elected to get us the crib and luckily, we’re going with an Ikea one so they can get it in person. We didn’t even bother telling them our registry is accessible online.

@vorpalette: oh lord. It is hilarious and sad when people don’t trust electronic credit card transactions. I’m like, they’re actually safer than paying cash or debit because you have a LOT more fraud protection!!! But money + internet = ABJECT TERROR.

What really makes me laugh is that FIL uses Amazon for other stuff all the time. It’s just the concept of this registry that is making his eyes cross. I mean … is it really that tough to understand?!?!